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David Malsher-Lopez

Texas IndyCar: Dixon tops final practice at 222mph

Before the final hour got underway, the field was split in two to practice running the high line, and it went largely incident-free, until Conor Daly had a spin out of Turn 4, thankfully keeping his Ed Carpenter Racing car off the wall. Rookie Benjamin Pedersen in the #55 AJ Foyt Racing machine had to take swift avoiding action, but he did this without problem.

Through the hour that followed, Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren and defending Texas winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske, appeared the most comfortable at running the high and low line, and seemed able to make their tires last.

But it was Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing, who will start from the outside of the front row, who snuck in with a 222.378mph lap to shade Newgarden by only 0.0615sec but that equates to 0.6mph around the TMS 1.5-mile oval.

Ganassi’s newest recruit, Takuma Sato, also bolted on a set of fresh Firestones to claim third fastest, ahead of Scott McLaughlin of Penske and the fastest Andretti Autosport entrant, Colton Herta.

Defending IndyCar champion Will Power made it three Penskes in the top six, ahead of the impressive Juncos Hollinger Racing entry of Callum Ilott.

Today’s pole-winner Felix Rosenqvist was the fastest Arrow McLaren cars in eighth, with his teammates Alexander Rossi and O’Ward in 11th and 13th, while Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson ensured all four Ganassi cars were in the Top 10.

There were no yellows in the final hour, the rookies Agustin Canapino (Juncos Hollinger), Sting Ray Robb (Dale Coyne Racing with RWR) and Pedersen staying out of trouble and clocking 15th, 17th and 24th respectively. Robb did have one scary moment when he clipped the grass on the dog-leg front ‘straight’ with his left rear, but he held the moment with aplomb.

Helio Castroneves was the only driver of the 28 entered to turn no laps in practice, having also missed the majority of the high-line practice due to a failed bearing.

Weather allowing, tomorrow’s 250-lap PPG 375 starts at 11.15am local (Central) time.

P Name FTime Diff Gap Laps FSpeed Engine Team
1 Scott Dixon 23.3117 23.3117 --.---- 84 222.378 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
2 Josef Newgarden 23.3732 0.0615 0.0615 106 221.792 Chevy Team Penske
3 Takuma Sato 23.4579 0.1462 0.0847 74 220.992 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
4 Scott McLaughlin 23.4712 0.1595 0.0133 95 220.866 Chevy Team Penske
5 Colton Herta 23.4775 0.1658 0.0063 89 220.807 Honda Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
6 Will Power 23.5014 0.1897 0.0239 98 220.583 Chevy Team Penske
7 Callum Ilott 23.5143 0.2026 0.0129 69 220.462 Chevy Juncos Hollinger Racing
8 Felix Rosenqvist 23.5513 0.2396 0.0370 93 220.115 Chevy Arrow McLaren
9 Alex Palou 23.5778 0.2661 0.0265 88 219.868 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
10 Marcus Ericsson 23.5986 0.2869 0.0208 100 219.674 Honda Chip Ganassi Racing
11 Alexander Rossi 23.6260 0.3143 0.0274 81 219.419 Chevy Arrow McLaren
12 Romain Grosjean 23.6644 0.3527 0.0384 70 219.063 Honda Andretti Autosport
13 Pato O'Ward 23.6960 0.3843 0.0316 96 218.771 Chevy Arrow McLaren
14 David Malukas 23.7208 0.4091 0.0248 87 218.542 Honda Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
15 Agustin Canapino 23.7425 0.4308 0.0217 59 218.343 Chevy Juncos Holling Racing
16 Kyle Kirkwood 23.7530 0.4413 0.0105 56 218.246 Honda Andretti Autosport
17 Sting Ray Robb 23.7588 0.4471 0.0058 92 218.193 Honda Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
18 Simon Pagenaud 23.7943 0.4826 0.0355 49 217.867 Honda Meyer Shank Racing
19 Christian Lundgaard 23.8204 0.5087 0.0261 76 217.629 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20 Conor Daly 23.8246 0.5129 0.0042 49 217.590 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
21 Ed Carpenter 23.8428 0.5311 0.0182 74 217.424 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
22 Devlin DeFrancesco 23.8465 0.5348 0.0037 67 217.390 Honda Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
23 Graham Rahal 23.8844 0.5727 0.0379 71 217.045 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
24 Benjamin Pedersen 23.9273 0.6156 0.0429 60 216.656 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
25 Santino Ferrucci 23.9294 0.6177 0.0021 75 216.637 Chevy AJ Foyt Enterprises
26 Rinus VeeKay 23.9527 0.6410 0.0233 92 216.427 Chevy Ed Carpenter Racing
27 Jack Harvey 24.0545 0.7428 0.1018 59 215.511 Honda Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
28 Helio Castroneves No Time --- --- --- --- Honda Meyer Shank Racing
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